Harry Reid to Politico: 'Get a brain, OK?' 6MAR14

MORE and more my respect grows for Majority Leader Sen Harry Reid D NV. Check this out....
Joan McCarter

This might be the most refreshing interview Politico has ever conducted with a politician. Politico's Manu Raju and Burgess Everett sat down with Harry Reid, but don't take his admonition seriously, judging by the results in this story.

Republicans think Harry Reid is running the Senate like a dictator: His no-compromise style is almost like Vladimir Putin’s, and his inflammatory rhetoric is reminiscent of the Joe McCarthy era. But Reid doesn’t seem to care.
"Get a brain, OK?" the Senate majority leader snapped at a reporter, when asked why he doesn't permit far more votes on GOP amendments. "You're a smart guy."
In an interview this week in his Senate office, a feisty Reid pushed back aggressively against Republican complaints over his leadership, pinning the blame entirely on the GOP for the gridlock and polarization that define the historically unproductive 113th Congress.

Please read below the fold for more on this story.

That's a simple place to start: all those GOP amendments that are little more than poison pills. For example, Republicans have offered up Obamacare repeal amendments to nearly every bill that that the Senate has considered this session. They've offered up amendments about every cooked-up "scandal," from the IRS targeting the tea party to "Obamaphones."

The unapologetic majority leader offered no regrets for his jaw-dropping rhetoric on the Senate floor where he’s repeatedly lambasted his political enemies and incited GOP charges of McCarthyism for calling the billionaire Koch brothers “un-American.”

Jaw-dropping rhetoric? Like this? "'It's reprehensible the way the United States Senate operates today,' said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), before comparing Reid to Putin." No, that's just mild Republican complaint. One of eight Republicans given the opportunity to complain about Reid in the article. (One Democrat besides Reid was included, Joe Manchin (D-WV).) But this might be the worst Politico has to offer:

In Reid's mind, it's Republicans who have shifted and tossed out their moderate wing, particularly during the Obama era. He says the likes of Karl Rove and McConnell made it their top priority to make Obama a one-term president to "make him look bad" by denying him legislative achievements. GOP senators, he said, tie up Senate votes by making far-fetched demands that are not policed by Republican leaders, such as Louisiana Sen. David Vitter’s demand for votes to slash Capitol Hill health care subsidies, leading to the obstruction of even the most routine business.

In Reid's mind? He's just imagining the tea party took over? He just imagined it when Mitch McConnell said his top priority was denying President Obama a second term? (Which Politico reported on, btw.) He's just imagined all those bullshit amendments, every cloture vote required on every nominee—even those that end up garnering 100 affirmative votes? He's imagined the most filibusters ever forced? Politico reporters obviously don't spend enough time with C-SPAN2. The last thing Reid should be apologetic for is speaking the truth about Republican obstruction. And he really doesn't need to apologize for telling Politico reporters to get a brain.

Originally posted to Joan McCarter on Thu Mar 06, 2014 at 08:11 AM PST.

Also republished by Daily Kos. 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/06/1282599/-Harry-Reid-to-Politico-Get-a-brain-OK?detail=email 

How Much Would It Cost to Repeal Health Care Reform? from MOJO 4JAN11

WHAT the gop and tea-baggers aren't tell us about their plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, from Mother Jones

— By Suzy Khimm

Republicans have released their health-care repeal bill—snappily titled "Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act"—which the party has now scheduled for a vote on January 12. The bill would repeal every part of the Affordable Care Act except for an overhaul of the student loan industry.
One thing the bill won't include, however, is a price tag. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that health care reform would save an estimated $143 billion over the next 10 years. According to that figure, repealing the law would add the same amount to the deficit. Republicans, however, have dismissed the CBO's estimates, arguing that Democrats have gamed the number by front-loading the legislation with savings in the first decade and that the law would cost taxpayers in the long run. As a result, they've refused to let the CBO score their repeal bill.
Democrats, in the meantime, have backed off their line that health care reform will save the country money—not because of the substance of their argument, but  because it hasn't proven politically popular with voters, according to Politico. So Democrats have basically conceded that Republicans have won the message war when it comes to the price tag of health reform, and taxpayers have little way of confirming exactly how much the GOP repeal effort could end up costing them.

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Entitlement Hypocrisy & GOP frosh: Where's my health care? from SOJO 18NOV10 & POLITICO 16NOV10

ANOTHER example of the hypocrisy of the gop elect and how the tea-baggers were played by politicians who are out for themselves. The blatant hypocrisy of Dr. Harris is galling, but not surprising....we can only expect more of the same in the next session of Congress. 
 
You might think that those who spent their campaigns telling their constituents that they would work to appeal “Obamacare” — just another government entitlement –  would either think that health care isn’t important, or that it’s okay for people to be uninsured, or that they clearly would not accept government subsidized health care for themselves or their families.
Well, that apparently that is not the case for Dr. Andy Harris, a newly elected Congressman from Maryland’s Eastern Shore. According to Politico, Dr. Harris, “an anesthesiologist, reacted incredulously when he was informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb 1 — 28 days after his January 3 swearing in.”
Okay, so I don’t know about you, but I think I’m pretty sure that I am like most Americans who have had to go without health insurance at one time or another. Most folks like me who have been without insurance, did so because there was a waiting period between their hire date and when insurance kicks in. (While I was permitted to purchase insurance from my previous employer through COBRA — I couldn’t afford it.)
Apparently, though, Dr. Harris has never needed to purchase insurance, at least until now. He wasn’t aware that COBRA allows him to purchase insurance for himself and his family so that they won’t be without insurance until the new policy kicks in. Because of that, he apparently went ballistic when he found out that his new government subsidized health insurance would not kick in until February 1st. He, like all of us, does not want his family to go without health care insurance coverage. I’m guessing he is intimately aware of what surgery and anesthesiology services cost to people who don’t have insurance — or how difficult it is for people without insurance to get care if they have an accident, injury, or illness while they are uninsured.
Well, lucky for you, Dr. Harris — if you or a member of your family has an illness or injury while you are uninsured (which fortunately for you, your family won’t need to be) or insured by a different health insurance provider, you will still be able to get coverage because “Obamacare” prevents health care providers from denying you coverage because of a “pre-existing condition.”
Know what else Dr. Harris? “Obamacare” ensures that all health care insurance cannot be canceled or terminated because you or your wife or your children get seriously ill and the cost of care exceeds what the health insurance provider is willing to cover.  Did you know, Dr. Harris, that many people prior to this have had their insurance canceled simply because they got seriously ill?
So which part of government-subsidized health care don’t you like? You seem to like it so much that you don’t think you should have to do what every other federal employee who receives federal health care has to do — wait for your health care to kick in until the first day of the first full month of your employment. You know, we could probably convince the health insurance companies to insure all federal workers the day their employment commences, but at what cost to American taxpayers?
So I’m not sure which part of “Obamacare” you don’t like. If you are like most in your party, you probably don’t think that employers should have to cover their employees or pay a tax to cover the cost of their health care that is passed on to the U.S. taxpayers. And another argument is that the government should not tell health care insurance providers what they must or must not do. But apparently, you want the government to require health insurance providers to cover you and your family immediately.
Call me clairvoyant, but I’m also guessing that you’ll be voting to cut Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare in order to address the federal deficit, but voting to extend tax cuts to people (like you) who are in the top 2 percent of wage earners in this country. (No conflict of interest there.) You’ll be interested in making sure that widows living on $25,000 per year are not taking advantage of entitlements. Because you know, we need to cut “entitlement” spending. But I’m guessing that you would not want us to cut the health care insurance coverage to which you are entitled as a member of Congress.
Rev. Jennifer Kottler is the Director of Policy and Advocacy at Sojourners. A long-time advocate for justice, Jennifer has served in advocacy ministry for more than eight years through her work at Protestants for the Common Good (Chicago, IL), the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, and the Chicago Jobs Council.

GOP frosh: Where's my health care?

Republican Andy Harris demanded to know why his health care plan takes a month to kick in. | AP Photo Close

By GLENN THRUSH

A conservative Maryland physician elected to Congress on an anti-Obamacare platform surprised fellow freshmen at a Monday orientation session by demanding to know why his government-subsidized health care plan takes a month to kick in.
Republican Andy Harris, an anesthesiologist who defeated freshman Democrat Frank Kratovil on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, reacted incredulously when informed that federal law mandated that his government-subsidized health care policy would take effect on Feb. 1 – 28 days after his Jan. 3rd swearing-in.

Listen

“He stood up and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care,” said a congressional staffer who saw the exchange. The benefits session, held behind closed doors, drew about 250 freshman members, staffers and family members to the Capitol Visitors Center auditorium late Monday morning,”.

“Harris then asked if he could purchase insurance from the government to cover the gap,” added the aide, who was struck by the similarity to Harris’s request and the public option he denounced as a gateway to socialized medicine.
Harris, a Maryland state senator who works at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore and several hospitals on the Eastern Shore, also told the audience, “This is the only employer I’ve ever worked for where you don’t get coverage the first day you are employed,” his spokeswoman Anna Nix told POLITICO.
Under COBRA law, Harris can pay a premium to extend his current health insurance an additional month.
Nix said Harris, who is the father of five, wasn’t being hypocritical – he was just pointing out the inefficiency of government-run health care.
Harris hammered Kratovil on health care throughout a bitter fall campaign, despite the fact that the conservative Democrat voted twice against the reform package backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), a close Kratovil ally.
“Although he voted against Obamacare, Mr. Kratovil refuses to commit to its repeal. Dr. Harris understands that the Obama-Pelosi-Hoyer agenda threatens to pull the plug on America's long-term health," Harris said in an Oct. 30 statement. “"In Washington, I will never vote to raise taxes, I will fight to repeal health-care reform, and I will work to balance the budget."

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45181.html#ixzz15k9EBUPV

Exclusive: Foreign-Funded ‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Running Partisan Attack Ads 5OKT10 & Tell the DOJ: Investigate the Chamber of Commerce's campaign spending from CREDO ACTION 7OKT10

THE previous post is an interview with Elizabeth Warren touting the goal of transparency and protection for American consumers, goals Progressives fought long and hard for. This shows what most of the gop and the tea-baggers stand for.....deception of the American electorate, propaganda demonizing Obama and Democrats, increasing the wealth of those already wealthy and individual and corporate greed and lust for power. The us chamber of commerce reaches a new low in accepting foreign funds to manipulate the outcome of an American election. Charges should be brought against those responsible in the chamber and sentences should be severe. The picture below is a reminder of who's side the chamber is really on, the side of greed, lust, abuse, repression.....Click this link to sign the petition from Credo Action calling on the Dept of Justice to investigate the chamber of commerce, the body of their call to action follows this main post....
http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/coc_doj/?r_by=11611-179986-EpkTBUx&rc=paste1

The largest attack campaign against Democrats this fall is being waged by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a trade association organized as a 501(c)(6) that can raise and spend unlimited funds without ever disclosing any of its donors. The Chamber has promised to spend an unprecedented $75 million to defeat candidates like Jack Conway, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Jerry Brown, Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), and Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA). As of Sept. 15th, the Chamber had aired more than 8,000 ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone, according to a study from the Wesleyan Media Project. The Chamber’s spending has dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending. A ThinkProgress investigation has found that the Chamber funds its political attack campaign out of its general account, which solicits foreign funding. And while the Chamber will likely assert it has internal controls, foreign money is fungible, permitting the Chamber to run its unprecedented attack campaign. According to legal experts consulted by ThinkProgress, the Chamber is likely skirting longstanding campaign finance law that bans the involvement of foreign corporations in American elections.
In recent years, the Chamber has become very aggressive with its fundraising, opening offices abroad and helping to found foreign chapters (known as Business Councils or “AmChams”). While many of these foreign operations include American businesses with interests overseas, the Chamber has also spearheaded an effort to raise money from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign governments. These foreign members of the Chamber send money either directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or the foreign members fund their local Chamber, which in turn, transfers dues payments back to the Chamber’s H Street office in Washington DC. These funds are commingled to the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) account which is the vehicle for the attack ads:

– The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has created a large presence in the small, oil-rich country of Bahrain. In 2006, the Chamber created a local affiliate called the “U.S.-Bahrain Business Council” (USBBC), an organization to help businesses in Bahrain take advantage of the Chamber’s “network of government and business relationships in the US and worldwide.” As the USBBC’s bylaws state, it is not an actual separate entity, rather it is simply an office of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 501(c)(6) trade association. Many of the USBBC’s board members are Bahrainian, including Aluminum Bahrain, Gulf Air, Midal Cables, the Nass Group, Bahrain Maritime & Mercantile International, the Bahrain Petroleum Company (state-owned), Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, and First Leasing Bank. With each of these foreign board members to the USBBC contributing at least $10,000 annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce raises well over $100,000 a year in money from foreign businesses through its operation in Bahrain. Notably, the membership form provided by the USBBC directs applicants to send or wire their money directly to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The membership form also explicitly states that the foreign-owned firms are welcomed.
– Like the Chamber’s involvement in Bahrain, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce operates in India through a group called “U.S.-India Business Council” (USIBC), which has offices around the world but is headquartered in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Dozens of Indian businesses, including some of India’s largest corporations like the State Bank of India (state-run) and ICICI Bank, are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce through the USIBC. Annual membership dues range from $7,500 to $15,000 or more, and the money is given directly into the Chamber’s 501(c)(6) bank account. Like the USBBC, the USIBC generates well over $200,000 a year in dues for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from foreign businesses. On the USIBC website, many of the groups lobbying goals advocate changing American policy to help businesses in India. Under the manufacturing policy goal, USIBC boasts that it “can play a helpful role in guiding U.S. companies to India, while supporting various policy initiatives that will enhance India’s reputation as a major manufacturing and investment hub.”
– Many foreign “AmChams” or Business Councils operate outside the direct sphere of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce but nonetheless send dues money back to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. For instance, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt is a separate entity based in Cairo that raises hundreds of thousands of dollars from both Egyptian firms and American businesses. However, the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt calls itself “the most active affiliates of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in the” Middle East. Another foreign chamber, like the Abu Dhabi AmCham, which includes American firms and Esnaad, a subsidiary of the state-run Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, claims that it is a a “dues paying member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and part of the global network of American Chambers of Commerce.” In Russia, the relationship between the American Chamber of Commerce there and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce here is opaque. This might be because many of the dues-paying members of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia are Russian state-run companies, like VTB Bank, and controlled by the Russian government. Asked by ThinkProgress if the Russian Chambers pay dues back to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Ksenia Forsheneva, the membership development manager at the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia, replied, “Unfortunately the information that you require is closed for the public.”

Previously, it has been reported that foreign firms like BP, Shell Oil, and Siemens are active members of the Chamber. But on a larger scale, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce appears to rely heavily on fundraising from firms all over the world, including China, India, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Russia, and many other places. Of course, because the Chamber successfully lobbied to kill campaign finance reforms aimed at establishing transparency, the Chamber does not have to reveal any of the funding for its ad campaigns. Dues-paying members of the Chamber could potentially be sending additional funds this year to help air more attack ads against Democrats.
Here’s how it works. Regular dues from American firms to the Chamber can range from $500 to $300,000 or more, depending on their size and industry, and can be used for any purpose deemed necessary by the Chamber leadership. For example, the health insurance giant Aetna has reported that it paid $100,000 in annual dues to the Chamber in the past. But for specific advocacy or advertising campaigns, corporations can hide behind the label of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and give additional money. Last year, alongside their regular dues, health insurance companies like Aetna secretly funneled up to $20 million to the Chamber for attack ads aimed at killing health reform (publicly, health insurance executives claimed they supported reform). Last week, Politico reported that News Corporation, the parent company of Fox News, gave an extra $1 million to the Chamber for its election season attack campaign.
There are many reasons foreign corporations are seeking to defeat Democratic candidates this November. The Chamber has repeatedly sent out issue alerts attacking Democratic efforts to encourage businesses to hire locally rather than outsource to foreign counties. The Chamber has also bitterly fought Democrats for opposing unfettered free trade deals. To galvanize foreign businesses, the Chamber has commissioned former Ambassador Frank Lavin — who served as the McCain-Palin Asia campaign director and has appeared on television multiple times recently saying a Democratic Congress is bad for business — to speak before various foreign Chamber affiliates to talk about the stakes for the 2010 midterm elections.
Because campaign finance laws prohibit foreign entities from contributing to political races here in America, we asked the Chamber to defend the legality of its fundraising operation. We have yet to receive a response. But as word of our investigation began to leak out yesterday, the Chamber informed Politico’s Mike Allen that it is now “preparing a response.”

Update The US Chamber of Commerce has responded to this post in a statement to the Politico's Ben Smith. The Chamber's Tita Freeman did not dispute that the Chamber's 501(c)(6) organization running attack ads receives foreign funds, and simply claimed, "We have a system in place" to prevent foreign funding for the Chamber's "political activities."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the poster child for corporate corruption of our electoral system.

This year alone the Chamber has pledged to spend $75 million on ads attacking candidates who don't meekly bow down to the biggest and wealthiest corporate interests.

However, an explosive new report by the Center for American Progress reveals that some of that corporate cash might be coming from foreign entities, which would be a federal crime.

There is already entirely too much corporate cash spent on our elections. It's intolerable that our democracy would be further undermined by illegal donations from foreign interests.

That is why we are joining our friends at MoveOn in asking Attorney General Eric Holder and the Justice Department to open an investigation immediately.

The Chamber of Commerce denies that it uses foreign money in any way that's illegal, but the Center for American Progress has documented how the Chamber aggressively raises money outside the United State from foreign entities — including state-run companies in Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, India and Russia — and deposits that money into the same general fund used to fund the Chamber's political program.

Because of the Chamber's tax status as a trade organization, it is able to shield most of its financial information from the public. So without a government investigation, all we have is the Chamber's woefully insufficient word that it is abiding by the law.

Given the stakes of this election, we cannot settle for nothing more than "Trust us" from an organization with such a huge credibility problem. And we cannot wait as this issue winds its way through a Federal Elections Commission rendered slow and toothless by its Republican members.

That is why we are calling on the Department of Justice to immediately move to investigate this explosive charge.

Thank you for working for a better world.

Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

¹Click here to read the report from the Center for American Progress.